But overtime her albums and singles became shorter. I wouldn't be surprised if we actually did get some tracks closer to the demos in the form of alternate versions, as it was pretty usual for her to release 2, 3 different versions at the same track back them.

I think you're right and there's actually quite a bit we know from the creative process and production from interviews and also other sources. I wish I could cite all of them here but I don't really have the time to make all the searches needed, sorry!

Whatever J version was clearly made for an album with a similar sound to a song for XX, whereas version M was a better fit for Loveappears. I'm not sure whether it was ultimately ayu's or her team's decision to change styles from ASFXX to Loveappears, but we know that ayu had a say in changing endless sorrow for I am... and making other last minute changes because of 9/11.

We also have a bunch of CM versions that sound like demos especially from MY STORY - (miss understood), compare step you CM and moments CM to the final products.

We know that Ayu and other avex artists (and other artists in general) will listen through catalogs of demo songs when choosing songs for an album or singles. Love songs was apparently a bit different though because she only chose songs composed by TK and I believe they were in a very raw state so to speak. She said soemthing about this in an interview at the time I believe...? Actually a very stripped down electronic instrumental medley of almost all of the songs on love songs was up on the avex corporate site playing in the background for a long time, which I guess could have been the original demos. So for that album ayu make lyrics based on just stripped down electronic compositions.

I'd also just like to mention the original sweetbox songs which I believe is the same versions ayu heard. No hate for sweetbox, but if we compare rainy day to every step, every step sounds like a demo version of an ayu song.

I'm honestly not so sure how much material ayu has laying around. I say that because she has clearly released songs she that weren't used for earlier releases (love again...) and she basically has to write lyrics for all of the songs and provides other input along with her extremely busy schedule which is a lot of work once she commits to a song. She is probably also a perfectionist (and the good and bad that goes along with that).

Typically an artist will write a ton of songs for an album, demo a certain percentage of those and then fully record and produce a portion of the demos. For example if you write 40 songs, demo 15-20, 10-15 will be fully worked/released (the numbers are arbitrary, but you get the idea). Artists that have others compose for them will sometimes skip the first step and go straight to working on demos. Ayu has produced so many songs and released so many with multiple albums a year, it's entirely possible that she turned all of the demos into full songs and released most of them. It's also possible that there are ton of unreleased demos just from sheer quantity, that she decided not to release but it's hard to determine which situation it is. Probably somewhere in between, since she recycled material for Love Again, but I really wouldn't be all that surprised if she has very few unreleased songs that went to production. It costs a label a lot of money to fully produce a polished pop-rock song, like thousands of dollars for a single song, so if they never gets released it's a significant loss.

I wonder why they never release like an unreleased song along with anniversary editions like this. I don't believe that she only recorded these 16 songs for this album. imagine how amazing it would be to have a new song recorded in that era.

I agree. I'm a bit annoyed when they just resell songs we already heard. At least give us something new and interesting. It's obvious this is just for the money and the wants of fans were not taken into consideration.

She should make a music videos for Trauma, End Roll, Too Late and Monochrome to mark the anniversary x

Personally, I really don’t like the idea of making music videos for songs released long time ago... especially for ayu with the change of her voice and style.
Her ideas for PVs nowadays can’t match the mood she had back than.
Best example is the Duty PV which was released along with the Pachinko game some years ago...

Release loveppears, build hype for drama
Use loveppears songs within drama, release new song for tie-up
Release a best 3 with tie-up for drama as added bonus

Actually pretty realistic imo. I’ve also started to think this “time off” she’s been taking is intencional, to create some kind of hype, as well as a legend kind of aura around her, making her discography seem more iconic. It has worked in my case, I perceive her past albums differently than I used to. As I said, more iconic.

Actually pretty realistic imo. I’ve also started to think this “time off” she’s been taking is intencional, to create some kind of hype, as well as a legend kind of aura around her, making her discography seem more iconic. It has worked in my case, I perceive her past albums differently than I used to. As I said, more iconic.

This is an interesting point! With the decline of her activity the past couple of years, I've also grown to regard her body of work (and especially her earlier works) with a kind of reverence.